Re: Licensing issues (Was: [Announce] Mneson : persistent untyped graphs)

["Marius Amado Alves" <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>]

> What's the difference between me and OSI? Is it that they are more guys?
> Is it that they have more money? Is it that their web site was up first?

I'd say the latter :-)

Actually the first important website was the FSF's. There's really no
difference between free software as per the FSF and open source as per the
OSI. When you ask the parties they say there's a "political" difference.
What that means exactly I was unable to ascertain. Maybe the FSF was not
willing to promote the OSD. Maybe OSI did not want to be a part of FSF from
the start. So there's two separate institutions now. Actually more, e.g.
Creative Commons. Fortunately they all get along fine, or so it seems. SDC
is supposed to get along fine too, and I believe it does, except for clashes
with the extreme school of though that says open source software is not to
be sold, period.

> ...I just don't think
> its right to tell someone they can't use some terminology to describe
> their software because it doesn't satisfy someone else who put up a web
> site.

It's not right, but they didn't just "put up a web site". FSF and OSI have a
very large user base. That is what makes them important. The snowball
effect. You can "put up a web site", but if it doesn't snowball it won't
make a difference. That's the present situation of the SDC. A snowflake.

I learn a bit more everytime this open source issue comes up. I hope to
learn how to make a clear commercial open source snowflake. One that will
roll. Thanks.